SB
by 0utlier
Summary: ONE SHOT. The war is over, but everyone is still mourning. Harry doesn't understand why he can't just move on and leave the rubble behind and tries to shut himself off from everyone he loves to protect them, but Ginny won't have any of that. As grief weighs heavily on everyone relationships are tested and both Harry and Ginny's hearts could be in more danger than ever.


"I love you, Harry," Ginny told him as he caressed her cheek with the kind of delicacy that he would use when painting or sculpting art. Of course to him, she was like a work of art herself; the way her fiery hair was strewn about around them and blue eyes, much like his, sparkling with joy and gentleness; gentleness that only revealed itself around him. They lain facing each other, with one of his hands on her face and the other on her hip, tracing soft circles. Her lips were swollen and her face was flushed, her ivory skin beautiful against the gentle sunlight that peaked inside their window.

He placed a gentle kiss on her full pink lips, one of the most gentle kisses that he'd ever given her. The way he watched her... it was obvious to anyone that he loved her, obvious in the way that he automatically looked for her in any room he entered, even if he knew she wasn't going to be there, and also in the way that he depended on her, as if she alone held all the hope in the world. So that was why, as he pulled back to kiss her forehead and rest his against it, he replied, "I love you too," his voice thick with emotion and his eyes full of love.

After one more brief glance, Harry turned away to lay on his back, exhaling with a gust of air. He stared up at the ceiling trying to control his face, fighting the urge to walk out and leave her behind, because how could he lie to her when she looked at him like that, eyes full of affection, fear, and sadness? Confusion, even? Could he protect her from the pain he felt? Without looking at her, he could feel the questions sounding in her head as loud as if she'd spoken them-like he always understood her. Why is he acting like this? Isn't this what he wants? Isn't this what he's wanted for a long time? Doesn't he love me? Ginny was one of the most confident people he knew, one of the strongest, but she was insecure about their relationship and, from the way he'd been acting, he didn't blame her.

She touched his arm lightly, trying to get him to look at her. He didn't-he already knew what he'd see. Hurt in her eyes, a slight quiver in her lip... Harry couldn't bear that, that was worse than any of it-he couldn't deal with the fact that hurt her; especially because it probably wasn't the first time. He'd kept himself together with tape and glue, doing everything he could to protect the people that he loved most from the feelings he despised, feelings that were selfish and bitter but also inescapable. It'd been one of the most difficult weeks of his life since after he'd lost Cedric, and then Sirius, and after that Dumbledore. He wasn't alone in this, but he certainly was one of the people who had no reason to feel jilted-after all, he'd defeated Voldemort and the remaining death eaters had gone into hiding. He had every reason to celebrate, but he couldn't shake the remaining feelings.

The person Sirius cared for the most in the world was you, Dumbledore had told him once, his voice quiet and eyes sad.

If he cared about me so much, why would he let himself die? Why would he leave me? Harry inaudibly asked the silence, his blue eyes clouded with pain. Ginny forced him to look at her now, the same agony echoing in her own eyes. She took a deep breath before asking the question that she was most afraid to ask, before possibly receiving the answer she was most afraid to hear.

Ginny tried to control her voice, but instead it came out in a wail of pain. "If you love me, then why won't you look at me?" A tear escaped her eyes, but she made no move to wipe it away. "You're sad. You're not supposed to look sad after what we just did," she continued, her voice stronger now but just as confused.

If you love me, then why won't you look at me? It was so easy to hear the doubt in her voice, the pain. All the pain and all the guilt felt like it was going to explode inside him and it took a few minutes of painful silence for him to answer. To gather the will to, because surely Ginny deserved better than him, better than a broken man, a broken soul. Damaged goods. She deserved someone who wouldn't hurt her like he had, someone who could be whole for her. Not deserved, needed.

Harry looked back at her, but only a quick glance. He walked over to the window and looked out. Sunlight was streaming steadily through the window now-morning had finally come. Outside was a world full of people-muggles and wizards-out there living their lives, out there mourning their own losses, and he had the nerve to feel cheated with this beautiful, unbelievably perfect woman in his arms, one that he loved and needed with equal measure,

"Harry, come back to me. Please, Harry," she begged, another tear falling. She hated the tears, hated the weakness that he brought out in her, but in the same way loved the feeling of loving so vulnerably, of loving someone because they knew her inside and out. She had never loved anyone before the way she loved him, and it was both thrilling and exciting-and painful at the same time. It hurt so badly, yet she couldn't deny that Harry had saved her life, and she loved him for it.

The wizard looked back at her, the way her body curved under the sheets and the way her icy blue eyes pierced straight through him, but caressed him gently at the same time, nearly brought him to his knees. "I should be fair to you," Harry told her. "I should do the right thing by you, 'Gin," He continued, sitting on the edge of the bed, his thumb gently wiping away her tears. "I should tell you the truth, because you're happy, and you want me to be happy and I need to be happy for you. But I can't...and I'm afraid that if I let my guard down for one second, the world is going to come crashing down. I don't deserve this. I don't deserve you. I don't deserve to feel happy, and I feel like if I ever did I would be disrespecting my parents and Sirius and Cedric and everyone else who's gone. If they can't be alive... If they can't be happy, why should I, Ginny?"

"You keep talking about how you don't have a right-a right to be happy, a right to live, but Harry, what gave you the right to assume that they aren't happy?" She took his hands in his, squeezing them tightly. "They died, Harry. Your parents died because they loved you. You would die for me, wouldn't you?" She asked him, eyes sparkling with tears. When Harry nodded, she continued. "How is that any different? That's what you do for the people you love, Harry. They know they didn't die in vain. They died to help you kill Voldemort. They died to save your life. You're right-they're dead, and you can't do anything about that. You can't live for them. But you can live. Shouldn't you be thanking them by living your life?" Ginny replied, her eyes looking for some sort of affection in his, some sort of anything. Anything but nothing.

"Ginny, it's not that simple," Harry began..

Ginny interrupted, "Oh Harry, but it is. You need to find some sort of peace with yourself... You... need.. you need to say goodbye. You never got a chance to mourn-and you deserve that. You deserve peace, and you won't be able to find it here in bed with me. You've spent so much time being there for me, helping me get over losing Fred-and I love you for that-that you've lost sight of your own losses. You need to find your resolve elsewhere." She paused before continuing. "Have you ever visited Sirius and your parents?"

"No, but what does that have to with anything?"

"It has everything to do with everything. Harry, if you go back and visit them, you can be happy again. All they want is for you to love them, Harry. So go show them that."

"How? I'll just be talking to the air and a bunch of marble statues."

"You really loved him, didn't you? Sirius." Ginny asked voice gentle.

Harry nodded, looking away for a second before looking back to meet her kind blue eyes. "He was the only family I had left."

She sighed, hating his pain. "You won't be talking to a stone, Harry. I know you won't. Sirius loved you-and you never give up on the people you love. They never leave you. Sirius said that he'd always be there for you, didn't he? Would he ever lie to you?" Ginny asked with a smile, affection filling her eyes. "I'll send an owl to Hagrid today. Tonight you'll go with him to Godric's Hollow, and there you're going to say goodbye. You deserve that, Harry."

She was bloody bossy, and he loved that about her, too. "Thank you." He told her, pulling her into his arms, feeling a fleeting sense of hope run through him like an electric current. He kissed her warm lips once more, and then spoke to her softly, murmuring into her ear, as if it was a secret. "I love you, Ginny. Don't ever doubt that."

Ginny smiled and it was beautiful, so heartbreakingly beautiful that as they fell back into bed Harry realized that he not only wanted love-he needed it. After all the pain that they'd endured, they needed each other now more than ever. He felt no qualms within him as his hand held her waist and pulled her closer to them, as their bodies slowly came together. Fire burst between them, and neither one of them had known that burning could feel so good. The daylight encased them then, beautiful and violent and full of promise, all at the same time.

* * *

A thick fog covered the grassy ground of the cemetery. Harry walked slowly towards the wrought iron fence surrounding the place, Hagrid nudging him along gently. The large headstones created almost a deathly skyline. In Harry's hand was a bright bunch of flowers. He looked down at them mournfully, hoping he could just drop the flowers and leave. But it wasn't that simple. It would never be that simple.

"Go along, now, Harry," Hagrid told him, his dark eyes full of sympathy and a familiar pain that Harry knew well. Hagrid knew how hard this was for him, for Harry to come back here...back to Godrick's Hollow once again, where his parents and now his godfather were laid to rest. Back to where he'd started, where it all had started.

When Harry looked back at Hagrid, waiting for him, Hagrid gave him a kind smile and nodded, gesturing forward. "Best I stay here. Got to keep ol' Buckbeak, company, don't I? Don't want him getting into any mischief," He said, touching Buckbeak's feathered neck, watching him with wide, adoring eyes.

Harry took a deep breath and walked on, somewhat determined, towards Sirius' headstone. He tried to find some sort of resolve within himself but wondered if it was possible. Even though the trouble was over now, even though Voldemort had been defeated and now they could supposedly head off into the sunset in a ray of glory, Harry still felt uneasy about what had taken place in the past seven years of his life. People were mourning, but people were also celebrating, something Harry found he couldn't participate in. He rarely showed this side of himself to anyone but Ginny, who knew the truth: Harry was in pain. He was angry, he was confused, he felt guilty, and, most of all, he was scared. He was scared that if he let himself feel happy for one moment the world was going to come crashing down around him. It was the reason why he held Ginny so tightly in his arms at night and never let his guard down, even around Ron, Hermione, and the rest of his friends.

I want you to listen to me very carefully, Harry, Sirius had said to him. You're not a bad person. You're a very good person, who bad things have happened to. Besides, the world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters. We've all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That's who we really are.

It was words like that that made it so difficult for Harry to forget Sirius and move on; why he couldn't rid himself of the pain Sirius brought him on a daily basis, along with all of the other people that he'd lost. Slowly, reluctantly, his finger reached out to feel the letters on the stone that combined to form: Sirius Black. There was nothing else. After all, to everyone except for him and his friends and The Order, he had died a traitor. There were no sentiments, no beloved brother, son, and friend. Even before he'd been shipped off to Azkaban, no one had seemed to care about him... no one except Harry, and Dumbledore, and a few select friends.

He tried to control himself, drop the flowers and walk away, but he couldn't. Harry felt a tear slide down his cheek and he hastily wiped it away, exhaling with a large gust of air, looking up at the towering headstone. Sirius was all he had left of real family. And now he was gone like a fragile leaf in the wintertime. Harry began shaking from all of the anger and confusion and loss built up inside of him, that he's held in for far too long. He sat down on the damp grass and let the tears take over him, suddenly not caring what he looked like to the outside eye. Harry was so tired of pretenses, so tired of pretending that he wasn't bitter and was instead grateful that the danger had passed and that he was safe now, when really, at least the danger had provided him with a chance to stall his grief. When he received eons of free time there was nothing to do but sit around and think and wait; wait for Sirius and Dumbledore and Remus and Snape and all the other people who had died to come back and make all of this worth it; wait for something that was never going to happen.

Almost fearfully, Harry reached into his shirt and pulled out a small golden locket on a large chain. There was a small catch on the side that when you pushed, the locket popped open. Before opening, though, he rubbed his thumb over the initials engraved on the front in a cursive font, "S.B", tracing them, trying to stop the tears from falling. He then brought his thumb over to the side of the locket, pressing down on the catch that made the locket pop open. He hesitated after, closing his eyes for a moment before finally opening them, looking down at the pictures, and shedding silent tears only his parents and Sirius could hear.

Seeing his parents and Sirius so happy made him break down again. It was never supposed to be this way, he thought. I was never supposed to have this scar, I was supposed to have parents who loved me. I was supposed to have family to turn to when no one else would help me. Harry thought of the last few years of Sirius' life; they were going to clear his name, Harry was finally going to leave the horror story of a life he had with the Dursleys and live with Sirius. He was supposed to have Sirius and Ginny and Ron and Hermione and his friends. He was supposed to... he was supposed to be happy.

And look where all of that hoping got me, the wizard thought bitterly, trying to shake the hopelessness and fear once more, but failing to do so.

Harry squeezed the locket shut, and clutched it in his palm so tightly that he could have broken his hand; but he wasn't fearful of that. If he was afraid of anything, it was the violent emotions that encased him, making it difficult to pretend that everything was fine, because if he lost sight of that, he'd have one more thing to be afraid of: what Ron and Hermione might see. Both of them were dealing in their own ways-Hermione had her parents to mourn, for she could never truly go back to them; and Ron's brother, another one of the people none of them would ever see again. Most importantly, he was fearful of losing anyone else ever again.

The flowers lay limply on ground, looking much more depressing than they were meant to be. He felt that they were kind of lame, but Sirius would understand. He picked them up and released them from their tightly bound bouquet as a sort of symbolic gesture. Sirius was free now. Free from Voldemort, free from being persecuted by the Ministry of Magic, free from ever feeling guilt.

He scattered the flowers (looking brighter now) over the grave as the sun began to shine its rays over the rooftops in Godric's Hollow. The wind came to blow some of the smaller flowers away, but Harry didn't mind. The flowers went where they wished to go.

"Harry, are ye done now? I should be getting ye back to the Burrow soon, or Molly's going to have me skin." Hagrid called out to Harry.

"Just a minute Hagrid." Harry replied. He stood up, his legs quite stiff from sitting on the ground for such a long time. He began to walk away, but then turned back to look at the marble headstone one last time. He reached his hand out to touch it, and felt the icy marble tingling through his palm.

It was definitely not time to leave the past behind, but it was time to love the life Sirius lived, not grieve over his death. Another thing that Sirius had said once came to him then, and as he heard his voice echo in his head, he smiled and for the first time in a long time felt at peace. You think the dead we love ever really leave us? Harry hadn't had an answer for him then, but as he felt a gust of air blow around the graveyard and the sun peak over the hills casting light on him, on them, he thought that if anyone would come back for him, if anyone would stay, stay by his side without ever abandoning him, it was Sirius.

**(A/N This was written by my friend Caroline (carolinecello101) and I. Thank you for reading :D Read and Review!)**


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